Yearly Meeting Gathering 2017: Revising the ‘Red Book’
Harry Albright reports on the work of the Revision Preparation Group
The Revision Preparation Group (RPG) was formed by Meeting for Sufferings following Yearly Meeting’s inability to find unity in 2014 on the issue of whether to revise Quaker faith & practice (Qf&p). Since then the RPG has worked to help the Yearly Meeting to reach a place where a decision on revision would be possible.
Lesley Richard, clerk of the Book of Discipline Revision Preparation Group, reported in a main session on Sunday evening at Yearly Meeting Gathering on the work of the group to date. A final report will be brought to Meeting for Sufferings in December.
One initiative was the ‘Reading Quaker faith & practice’ exercise, which she said had a take up ‘far greater than we dared hope’. The aim was to familiarise Friends with the Book of Discipline, and she said the RPG is now asking Friends for the answer to one question – ‘What have you learned?’ She said that responses can be sent by various methods, including online at the Britain Yearly Meeting website or by post.
The RPG has also set up a system for collecting new material for a potential revision. She said that ‘before the ink was dry’ on the last revision, suggestions of new material were already coming in, and changes in technology mean that these can now be collected and collated electronically rather than being kept in ‘a brown paper envelope’.
Turning to the RPG’s discernment on whether or not it is time to revise, Lesley Richard said that the group has been working closely with the Church Government Advisory Group, which has described the current church government sections of Qf&p as ‘barely adequate’. She said: ‘This part has not been properly revised since 1964’ and, since there is ‘no sense in doing half a job’, the RPG is currently minded to recommend to Sufferings that the whole book be revised as soon as possible. This could involve looking at changes in structure, with perhaps a core book that would not need regular revising as laws and practice changed, complemented by supplementary materials detailing the ‘mechanics’ of things like weddings, which could be updated as necessary.
On theological matters, she said that the RPG had come to the conclusion that the ‘theist/nontheist’ dichotomy is ‘a deeply unhelpful way of talking about our religious differences’. While nontheists are happy to use the label, the term ‘theist’ does not have such currency, and tends to be used to mean Friends who are ‘not nontheist’. These terms also suggest that there are two distinct, polarised groups when in fact there is a wide range of belief across the Yearly Meeting.
In order to explore some of these issues, the RPG convened a ‘theology think-tank’ of Friends from across the range of beliefs. A booklet will be issued in the autumn which ‘will give a sense of their conversations’.
Finally, Lesley Richard urged Friends with any comments or concerns to contact the RPG as it prepares its final report during the autumn. She said: ‘We want to listen closely to what you say.’
